Gemini Bridges-Golden Spike-Poison Spider

Hi Guys,

I find myself once again going outside and finding snow. I managed to get on the mountain bike today for a chilled 40 minute ride. I had 2 layers of gloves, 3 shirts, 1 vest, hat, bike pants with warm bike stuff and was still cold. It is really hard to ride to work when the snow keeps falling. Ski school is in full swing and it is fun to see kids finally get it.

Below is the last day of the Moab MTB trip photos. Our 17.5 mile day grew to 33.5 when one member of the group got fed up of the hike-a-bike sections of the golden spike to portal trail and decided to go down into poison spider greatly increasing out day.


This is a panorama photo. Note there are two pictures of me in this photo. Kind of weird.

Here is the group going over the gemini bridges. Really cool arch.

Trey had a thing about destroying every tube he had. This was another tubeless tire that had to get a tube.

We found this great climbing rock on our ride. One guy said this rock was known as the "crackhouse". Kind of weird, except, there is a 3~5 inch crack down the middle of it. If you were a really good climber, you could hand jam upside down the whole 100 or so feet this is long. You are only 3.5 feet off the ground but it looked ridiculous.

Here is Matt playing on the rock.

Here Scott is playing on the rock. If you look behind Scotts camelback, notice the crack in the rock. That is where you follow the crack for an insane climb.
Trey actually didn't puncture a tire with this demonstration. Hanging out.
With my sprained wrist I gave it a whirl...not to well. The wrist wasn't very happy with me.
And to round out the group, Mike B from San Diego is hanging out.
Here is Matt, dropping down the rock trail. It is kinda fun to think that jeeps go up this stuff.

Scott takes a more direct line off the biggest drops he can find.
Mike B on the Ibis Mojo makes this drop look easy. That carbon fiber bike sure looked nice.
At a lunch stop, here is looking back toward gemni bridges area. There is a lot of rock, scrub and nothing.
Looking the other way, we are heading along the rim in the picture all the way to the right side of the below photo on the edge of the rim. That is where we were supposed to go down.

Mike B riding up a nice long rock hill.

You know you are strong when you can hold up a rock from crushing your buddys bikes.

Oh wait, I can do it to...must not take that much strength.

Here is a panorama of the rock looking into the canyon nearby. Where the guys are standing is a serious overhang. Kind of freaky when you look at where we were standing when you are aways away.

We started to find oil drips from a Jeep that didn't fair so well. It was almost better than the trail markers.

Going up the hill in the above photo, we made our way to the rim looking down above Moab.

The next post is continuing along Golden Spike trail along the rim trying to find the portal trail, one guy getting fed up with us and taking us all down the poison spider sand dunes of death trail.

Hi All,

Skiing this year has been great...well until the great flood of 2009. The snow in the front yard is gone and now it is in the mid 40s lower 50s. Long gone are the 3 1/2 ft snow banks on the side of the driveway. Now it is much easier to get around.

Below is the start of our last day in Moab. Below is Gemini Bridges. Note the ghost image. This is a stitch of 3 photos. This day started out as a 17 miles trip, ending up around 34 miles.

More SNOW!!!

Hi Guys

Sunday Night, Jan 4th. Elevation 200ft above sea level, still more snow falling. It had finally melted off the grass and the pile from shoveling the sidewalk was all that was left. Don't worry, tonight the "rain possible snow" forecast turned out to be 4 inches in 2 hours and still snowing.

Our last snow was cold and dry, this stuff is great for snowmen and sliding around. Nice thing is people are just chaining up rather than piling up. We are just not set up for massive amounts of snow here. Everything is built on a hill.

Not too late to sign up your 6~12 year old with Alpine West Ski School www.alpinewestskischool.com to learn how to ski and Snoqualmie pass. Who knows, you may get me for an instructor.

Looking forward to the first day of work for you the year...if the snow continues...maybe not.

Sekiu

Happy New Year!

I celebrated new years with a Nerf gun war, watching the snow fall outside again. It actually snowed soo much at the pass, they shut it down, and shut me down from skiing today...bummer.

Below is my trip to Sekiu Washington. All off these picture of water are of the Straights of Juan de Fuca. We are at sea level. I like the road sign below.



Below we have the beach, and the old lighthouse building in Clallam Bay in the distance. Note the snow covering on the beach.
Looking the other way, after 2 days of rain, still had snow on the beach. If you look in the distance, you can see the white wash from the waves blending in with the snow.
The river swelled and came right up to the water. It was cold!
Here is a pano of Sekiu with snow. Don't see this very often.
Ironic, this place is called the Breakwater Inn. Always wondered how the rock wall gets destroyed.

Here is a view of Sekiu harbor and some really neat sky.

This is 5 pictures together from the road of massive waves pounding the jetty. Glad this wasn't fishing season.

The Sekiu river as it meets the straights. Big waves. Lots of snow...really fun.

This photo takes the phrase bridge to nowhere to a new level. Actually the enviro-nuts prevented the city from saving the beautiful park that used to exist before the river took it out.

Note the waves crashing higher than the land.

Another view of the bridge, waves, and snow on the beach.

Sekius Rowes (Rose) the salmon and harbor.

Happy new year and enjoy.

White Christmas

Hi Guys,

Thought I would post about a recent Ski Trip. Where is this winter you may ask...in my front yard! After shoveling the snow off the sidewalk for several days of snow fall, it piled up to my waist. This is at 200ft above sea level. Even got some downhill skiing off Salmonberry street the other day. Long walk up.

Enjoy the photos and Merry Christmas.



Note the snow level compared to my F250. Gives some perspective
Another shot of my ski trip...right outside the front door. Made a nice track in the local park and got some laps in.

My neighbors cars. Yes there are cars under there. We has several days massive amounts of snow. Total snowfall for this storm is well over 2ft. This morning we got another 5 inches. Looks more like Snoqualmie pass than just above sea level.

A different view of my neighbors cars buried.

After my first day of shoveling. We have had an equivalent of 3 years of snow in 2 weeks.

For comparison, note the size of the wheelbarrow next to the truck.

Driving down the road, some photos of the road.

Another victim of 4 wheel "Slide" syndrome.

Christmas Eve, another dusting of snow. Starting to get nervous about the roof. We are supposed to get rain soon and that would make all that snow really heavy.

Moab 2008 Bartlett Wash

Hi Guys,

Another post today. The snow is on the ground, roads are fine, my wrist is back in action and ready to begin another season.

This time last year, I was on the a boat crossing Drake's passage on my way to Antarctica.

If you get a chance, check out the Abu dhabi Anventure Challenge. 36 teams from around the world are comepting over a 6 day stage race. A buddy of mine, that I can sometimes, keep up with, his team won entry into the race and early last week was somewhere around 14~15th place over all. World class athelete. Look for team Dart-Nuun.

Hope to start training for a 70.3 Ironman this next year. I was hoping to complete the 1900meter swim in 50 minutes. A good goal, until I spoke with my 7th and 8th grade cousins who can swim a 1600 under 23 minutes...If you don't dream big, you wont get there.


Back to Moab: I have crazy video once I figure out how to compress it to put it on this site.


This was Thursdays ride at Bartlett. We wanted a easier day to go play around rather than another 5 hour day on the bike before our monster 33.5 mile day on Friday. On this ride the steel framed hardtail riders out did the fully suspend guys. Those guys were nuts.

Trey found his hill right away and what better to do on a hill than a front wheelie
Matt demonstrating how to go really slow down something ridiculous steep.
The camera view for Matt came out better than for me. Yes, it was crazy steep.
Matt took getting back off the seat to a whole new level, but he didn't crash so it worked.
I decided to let off the front break and just bomb it when I got 1/2 way down because my tire was getting destroyed trying to go ultra slow down this. The end result was the same...no crashes.
This ride Trey got to ride off a bunch of rocks. He didn't flat on this wheelie drop.
Everywhere we went there were these cool little bowls. This one was a bunch of fun.
Our ridge to get to the lunch spot was ~3 feet wide. If you got off the ledge, you couldn't stop for another 30 feet before another ledge to get some more traction. Our side walls of the tires got a good workout.
This panorama demonstrates the steepness of the next couple of photos. Scott is in the background falling over...not really but made for a neat picture.
San Diego Mike Crossing the great ridge hold bowl.
Here is a panorama of me in different stages of dropping in the bowl. Note two photos above for the steepness.
Scott on the steel framed hardtail got the Wow...can't believe you just did that award. Though the steepness isn't as bad as the first hill at the start of the ride, if you bailed here, the pain would be much worse. Yes it is as steep as it looks.
We couldn't believe he was really dropping in this thing.
He made it...somehow. Lean back, keep the back tire in a constant directional skid and hope you make it. Way to go Scott...but no way I am doing that. I got to go to work on Monday.
Trey found another hill to climb and played on the way down. He was also on a steel framed hartail and it took a lickin here but did just fine.
At the top of the rim, here is a pano of the surrounding area.